Awesome Duo

Morning, Gemma here. I've swapped days with Jenny this week and I thought I’d share another non-holiday card, for all those winter birthdays. Actually, it’s a 2-for-1 today, as I have two cards which are variations on a theme.

My first card is one layer, all stamping. I made up the word 'awesome' from the fun Paper Smooches Graffiti stamp set. I love the mix of fonts in this set and most letters have a couple of styles to choose from too.

I then took some ink splash stamps from the MFT distressed patterns stamp set, and stamped these in different colours behind the letters. To add to the graffiti look, I stamped some larger ink splashes, from the same set, around the card edges. I also stamped some inside the card, to add more interest.

The sentiment is from the Lawn Fawn Out Of This World stamp set.

For my second card, I had originally planned to die cut the C&9 Double Cut Alphabet and add them onto a card base. I really liked the negative space left over from die cutting the word, though, so decided to use this instead.

I blended on green inks, splashing it with water for some detail. Then I cut down the panel into a strip to add to a card base. I didn’t use any foam tape, but you could do if you wanted the dimension.

I stamped the same sentiment as previously, then added some enamel dots to finish the card.

Thanks for joining me today,

Gemma

C&9th Double Cut Alphabet

Paper Smooches Graffiti

MFT Distressed Patterns

Lawn Fawn Out of this World

Greenery - Pantone Colour of the Year

Hello, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year.

Today I have a card based on the 2017 Pantone colour of the year, which is Greenery. It's a lovely fresh yellow-green, and is a calming, reinvigorating colour for the new year.

What better set to use for my card than the MFT Leafy Greenery die-namics!

To create the leaves, on watercolour paper I blended Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens (44 Light Green and 45 Pale Green) with a little water to create a wash of colour. I then die cut several leaves from it, using the MFT Leafy Greenery die-namics.

From an A6 piece of white card, I die cut an MFT Single Stitched rectangle frame to create a window. The background needed some colour, so I used the MFT Distress Patterns stamp set with some green inks to add paint splatter detail.

On an A6 card base, I blended on some light blue distress ink to show through the window when the card is put together. I arranged the leaves to sit within the frame and adhered everything down.

To finish the card, I added a sentiment using the MFT Label Makers stamp set.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope I've inspired you to have a go at making a card using the Pantone Colour of the Year 2017.

Gemma

MFT Leafy Greenery

MFT Distressed Patterns

MFT Rectangle Frames

MFT Label Maker Sentiments

Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pens

Trying to Loosen Up

I've been playing with my paints this weekend - desperately trying to loosen up my colouring style but I find "letting it flow" so hard to do, so I have one loose and and a couple which fit much closer to my normal CAS style.   All the cards were done with just black ink and gansai tambi water colour paints which are so heavily pigmented you can even stamp with them!

For my "loose" painting I used Sketched Blooms from MFT and stamped the heads and stem outlines across a watercolour panel.  You can stamp the solid stamps to colour them in but I opted to just paint them and add a lot of water and smoosh it around a bit.  I added some sky and ground and more spritzing with water and then added in a little more depth of colour to the flowers once it was dry.  I finished with some splatters of red and a sentiment from Piece of Cake.

For the CAS cards I used an Altenew set that has been sitting in my drawer for months crying out to be inked, so I finally got around to it and I loved it so much I did two - that set is Succulents and it is a joy to colour.

For the first one I coloured the succulent with the paints on a scrap of watercolour and fussy cut it out.  The background was created by painting the strips and spots from Distressed Patterns with more paint and stamping with them before lightly spritzing for a softer feel.  The succulent itself was curved with my fingers and then I used pinflair gel to glue it with shape and dimension like you would with decoupage.

The second one was super-CAS.  Just stamped and coloured with white pearl paint on the tips of each petal adding lovely shimmer that doesn't photograph well.  I paired it with a strip of patterned paper from the new Smitten pad from MFT.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

So we're almost a week in and there are a lot of snagging problems to be solved - I'm working on it, but I have to fit it around packing your orders now so bear with me.   If you find something isn't working - drop me an email via the contact us form and I'll add it to my list of fixes!

We've had MFT and Newton's Nook new arrivals since we opened.

Mama Elephant's new release is in transit but for some reason went via Cincinnati and got stuck there on Thursday/Friday.   Its crossing the Atlantic now so hopefully will be here Monday or Tuesday.

The new release from SugarPea design is also in transit and should be here in a few days.

We have the new Altenew release coming soon - hopefully in a week or two.

We'll be ordering the new release from Concord and 9th today so hopefully that will be here soon too.

We've been keeping an eye on all the new releases at CHA - it does take a while for them to filter through as they only have a little stock to take to the show, they then get their orders in and get it manufactured, so expect them to release towards the end of February - start saving your pennies - there is a TON of new stuff coming then!